Japanese title: シュガー＆スパイス 風味絶佳
Rating: PG
Running time: 125 minutes
Now out on DVD!
Some info:
1) AsianMediaWiki
2) IMDB
There’s apparently an American movie by the same title (at least in English =P), so I just added an extra tag just for the fun of it. =D Just by looking at the poster, it’s not hard to imagine that this movie is going to be centred around a love story.
Well, that may be true, but I think it’s not entirely the main focus of the movie. I find that it’s more about Shiro’s (played by Yagira Yuya) experience and journey through growing up and coming to terms with more things as he tries out various things in his adolescent years. Among those include leaving home and getting a job at a gas station instead of pursuing further education as well as falling in love for the first time, of course with the girl in the poster, Noriko (played by Sawajiri Erika).
Although there are various problems that Shiro face, a lot of time is not surprisingly spent on relationship issues, woes and uncertainties. After all, it’s his first and many kinds of emotions come with it as he goes through different stages in the relationship as well as facing the existence of Noriko’s ex. There are quite a few nice scenes that I thought was nicely played out but at times, it can get a little too draggy/slow paced especially when Shiro is all depressed and emotional about Noriko disappearing/leaving. Perhaps it would have been better if those parts were shorter.
Besides these 2, there’s also Shiro’s grandmother who plays a somewhat important role as she is the one who really tries to guide them (especially Shiro) every now and then with her life experiences and all. Sometimes her actions and words seem a little weird and hardly comprehensible to me, but she does say some good and meaningful things every now and then, which I think is crucial in shaping how the story plays out due to the influence on Shiro.
For those who are looking forward to a sweet and happy ending, you are going to see something quite the opposite, except that Shiro comes to terms with it, and learns what he should do and moves on with life and faces the future. But to be honest, after dragging at many scenes towards the later half of the show and seeing such an ending, somehow I didn’t find the closure very satisfying.
On a side note, some of the (English) insert songs played during the course of the movie sounded quite nice, and a couple of them are actually familiar. Overall, I think this movie has its merits as well as pitfalls, but averages out to be quite an average movie. My take: 6/10
p.s. the movie also seems to suggest that being the Mr nice and gentle guy all the time may not work out well =P which I think is somewhat true =X
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